Roberts v. Unison Behavioral Health

312 Ga. 438

863 S.E.2d 99

ROBERTS

v.UNISON BEHAVIORAL HEALTH.

S20G1518

Supreme Court of Georgia.

Decided: September 21, 2021

Mylee McKinney O'Connor, Graham Franklin Floyd, Johnson Floyd LLP, 132 W Parker Street, Baxley, Georgia 31513, for Appellant.

Kathleen M. Pacious, Deputy Attorney General, Christopher M. Carr, Attorney General, Office of the Attorney General, 40 Capitol Square, S.W., Atlanta, Georgia 30334-1300, Loretta L. Pinkston-Pope, Senior Assistant Attorney General, Angela Ellen Cusimano, Assistant Attorney General, Department of Law, 40 Capitol Square, S.W., Atlanta, Georgia 30334-1300, William Knight Scott, Georgia Department of Law, 40 Capitol Square SW, Atlanta, Georgia 30334, for Appellee.

Nahmias, Chief Justice.

After Sally Madison Roberts was involved in a car accident with a vehicle owned by Unison Behavioral Health, a Georgia community service board, she filed suit against Unison. As required by the Georgia Tort Claims Act ("GTCA"), OCGA § 50-21-20 et seq., Roberts provided an ante litem notice listing, among other things, the nature of her loss. See OCGA § 50-21-26 (a) (5) (D). Unison moved to dismiss Roberts's complaint for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, however, arguing that the description of her loss was insufficient. The trial court denied the motion to dismiss, but after Unison was granted an interlocutory appeal, the Court of Appeals reversed. See Unison Behavioral Health v. Roberts , Case No. A20A0595 (decided July 1, 2020) (unpublished). We granted Roberts's petition for certiorari to decide whether the Court of Appeals erred in determining that Roberts's ante litem notice failed to meet the requirements of OCGA § 50-21-26 (a) (5) (D). Because we conclude that Roberts's notice was sufficient, we reverse the Court of Appeals’ decision.

1. The pertinent facts are undisputed. On April 17, 2017, Roberts was in a car accident with a vehicle owned by Unison and driven by a Unison employee. Roberts's mother¹ began discussing a possible settlement with a liability adjuster at the Georgia Department of Administrative Services ("DOAS") soon after Roberts's accident, but no settlement was reached. On February 28, 2018, Roberts's attorney sent an ante litem notice of Roberts's claim by email and certified mail to the DOAS, the Georgia Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Disabilities, and Unison. Under the heading "Nature of loss suffered," the notice gave the following description:

Sally Madison Roberts: Bodily injury; past, present and future mental and physical pain and suffering; infliction of emotional distress; past, present and future medical expenses; past, present and future lost earnings; diminished earning capacity.

The notice also said, among other things, that the loss was caused by Unison's employee operating a van "in a wanton and negligent manner and collid[ing] with the rear end of Ms. Roberts’[s] vehicle at a high rate of speed" and that the "amount of loss claimed" was $1,000,000.

On November 8, 2018, Roberts filed a complaint in the Bacon County Superior Court alleging that Unison's negligence caused her car accident and injuries.² Unison, represented by the Attorney General, filed a special appearance answer and a motion to dismiss, asserting that the ante litem notice did not comply with OCGA § 50-21-26 (a) (5) (D) and thus the lawsuit was barred by sovereign immunity.³

On June 21, 2019, the trial court denied Unison's motion to dismiss, ruling that Roberts's notice satisfied the requirement of OCGA § 50-21-26 (a) (5) (D). But the trial court granted Unison a certificate of immediate review, the Court of Appeals granted Unison's application for an interlocutory appeal, and Unison then filed a timely appeal.

On July 1, 2020, the Court of Appeals reversed the trial court's order, holding that Roberts's notice was not sufficient because the "description of the nature of her loss does not fulfill the requirement that she state the required information ‘to the extent of [her] knowledge and belief and as may be practicable under the circumstances.’ " Roberts , slip op. at 5 (quoting OCGA § 50-21-26 (a) (5) ). Quoting Bailey v. Georgia World Congress Center , 351 Ga. App. 629, 631, 832 S.E.2d 446 (2019), a case in which the Court of Appeals held that a similar notice of loss was insufficient under § 50-21-26 (a) (5) (D), the court said:

"While [Roberts's] ante litem notice specifies an amount of damages and indicates that she suffered various general types of damage and injury, it does not describe the nature of those injuries or provide any details regarding the type of injury or injuries she allegedly sustained."

Roberts , slip op. at 5. This Court then granted Roberts's petition for certiorari.

2. The GTCA provides a limited waiver of the State's sovereign immunity, and that waiver is effective only if all of the requirements in the act are met. See OCGA § 50-21-23 (b) ("The state waives its sovereign immunity only to the extent and in the manner provided in this article and only with respect to actions brought in the courts of the State of Georgia."). OCGA § 50-21-26 (a) requires a tort claimant who plans to file a lawsuit against the State to provide an ante litem notice within a certain time frame, in a certain manner, and including certain information. See OCGA § 50-21-26 (a) (1), (2), (5). If the required notice of a claim is not given, the courts do not have jurisdiction over the claim. See id. (a) (3) ("No action against the state under this article shall be commenced and the courts shall have no jurisdiction thereof unless and until a written notice of claim has been timely presented to the state as provided in this subsection[.]").

A purpose of these notice requirements is "to ensure that the state receives adequate notice of the claim to facilitate settlement before the filing of a lawsuit." Williams v. Ga. Dept. of Human Resources , 272 Ga. 624, 625, 532 S.E.2d 401 (2000) (" Williams ").⁴ Strict compliance with the GTCA's ante litem notice requirements is required; substantial compliance is insufficient. See Bd. of Regents of Univ. System of Ga. v. Myers , 295 Ga. 843, 845, 764 S.E.2d 543 (2014). However, "strict compliance [does not] ‘take precedence over the plain language or meaning of the statute.’ " Id. at 846, 764 S.E.2d 543 (citation omitted).

The particular ante litem notice requirement at issue in this case is found in OCGA § 50-21-26 (a) (5), which says:

A notice of claim under this Code section shall state, to the extent of the claimant's knowledge and belief and as may be practicable under the circumstances, the following:

(A) The name of the state government entity, the acts or omissions of which are asserted as the basis of the claim;

(B) The time of the transaction or occurrence out of which the loss arose;

(C) The place of the transaction or occurrence;

(D) The nature of the loss suffered;

(E) The amount of the loss claimed; and

(F) The acts or omissions which caused the loss.

Because we presume that the General Assembly " ‘meant what it said and said what it meant,’ " Deal v. Coleman , 294 Ga. 170, 172, 751 S.E.2d 337 (2013) (citation omitted), we will analyze the language that the legislature used in this provision.

(a) The "to the extent of the claimant's knowledge and belief and as may be practicable under the circumstances" qualifier.

OCGA § 50-21-26 (a) (5) requires a claimant to state the information required by subsections (A) through (F) "to the extent of the claimant's knowledge and belief and as may be practicable under the circumstances." Unison argues that this language required Roberts to provide more details about her injuries because she knew more details. Unison asserts that Myers supports this position. It does not.

In Myers , this Court held that the requirement of OCGA § 50-21-26 (a) (5) (E) that the ante litem notice state "[t]he amount of the loss claimed" was not satisfied by a notice that "did not state any amount of loss whatsoever," when the plaintiff had "actually incurred medical expenses at the time she gave notice." Myers , 295 Ga. at 846, 764 S.E.2d 543. We explained that although "the statute does not require that a claimant give notice of the ‘entire loss,’ the ‘complete loss,’ or the ‘total loss,’ " "the extent of [the claimant's] knowledge and belief at the time of notice included, at a minimum, the medical expenses she had incurred thus far." Id.

Although Myers held that OCGA § 50-21-26 (a) (5) required the plaintiff to provide more information than she had provided in her notice because she knew more information, the key to that holding was that the information the plaintiff withheld – the amount she was claiming for her loss at the time of the notice – was responsive to the requirement set forth plainly in § 50-21-26 (a) (5) (E). See Myers , 295 Ga. at 846, 764 S.E.2d 543 ("[T]he plain language requires notice of the amount of the loss claimed at that time, within the belief and knowledge of the claimant, as may be practicable under the circumstances."). In other words, the plaintiff gave no information at all in her ante litem notice about "the amount of the loss" that she claimed, even though she knew an amount at that time based on her medical expenses up to that point. Myers did not hold that the plaintiff was required to provide any details about the amount claimed (for example, the name and itemized cost of each medical treatment she had received) – although she likely knew such details – because that additional information is not required by the plain language of subsection (a) (5) (E). Thus, Myers does not support Unison's argument that Roberts should have provided more information about her alleged loss in her ante litem notice simply because she knew more information at that time. OCGA § 50-21-26 (a) (5) (D) says that a claimant must state the "nature of the loss suffered," not everything she knows about her injuries.

Unison's argument on this point also does not offer any real guidance on how...